Once, indeed, my resolve was half hatched to gain some plain speech of her. I lay in wait until, the day being fine, I had sight of her on a rustic seat over across in the square. She was wrapped in a fur of some sort—martin, I think—and, with this drawn high about the throat, it so framed her face as to make her beautiful to the verge of witchcraft.
Seeing how she was near a path, I lounged out of door, and crossing the road, would make as though to walk by her, casually, and for exercise and air. It was my plan to greet Peg, and next drift into word with her as in the old time. The old time! It was not days away, and yet it seemed as distant as my cradle! I would drift into speech of her, I say, and trust to fortune and my wit to bring down the explanation I believed might solve a reconciliation for us. It was a stratagem sagacious enough, but Peg granted me no chance of its test.
Before I could get to Peg, indeed, before I journeyed half the distance, she arose, careless and contained, as though she had not observed me—albeit I am sure she had—and would be moving for her own gate. At this I half halted; and Peg, striking out into a rapid walk, was in a moment the other side of her door. A little later I saw her standing by a window.
With Peg's flight I was abashed; it was so sure she wished to dodge me. Then a kind of anger took me in hand and I started towards her house. I do not know what was my precise thought in this, or whether I would have gone forward to lift the great knocker on the panel. As it fell forth, however, Peg, on seeing me coming, whipped away from the window; with that my heart would turn all to water and I faced sadly about.
Being abroad in the streets, I now went on to walk, and to clear my bosom of that unhappiness which lay so heavy on it. I walked on and on, with no clear purpose until the thing to strike my notice was how here before me sprawled that vine which, on a summer day, Peg characterized for its wanderings and said it was like her.
Why I should go seeking this vine is by no means plain; and yet I must have owned to some hope of its succor, since I stood long to consider it, and cast about with my eyes if, by any luck of nature, a stout true tree stood at hand which might be given it for support. There was none; the poor vine must live and die unwedded on the loveless ground.
Somehow it magnified my sorrow when I could learn no way to help Peg's vine. But so it abode; there it should lie until the end. And the vine would seem to realize this, too; for it looked desolate, with leaves frost-seared and discolored like perished hopes.